


Call Me By Any Other Name

by kinkyhux



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Alternate Universe, Chesapeake Ripper, Domestic Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Empathy, M/M, Mind Manipulation, No Gay Panic, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-12 09:21:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15992300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinkyhux/pseuds/kinkyhux
Summary: Call Me By Any Other Nameis the story of a desperate and saccharine romance that blossoms in the summer of 1998 between a seventeen year-old student of criminology, and a mysterious guest at his parent's cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera.Based on the novel by André Aciman, this story takes the fever dreamCall Me By Your Nameand gives it a nightmarish twist. (No need to have any knowledge of CMBYN to read this fic :D)Chapter two is up!





	1. The Love Shock

**Author's Note:**

> Will is 17, and Hannibal is 33. I wanted to keep the ages accurate to the show's canon.
> 
> I chose to write in first person (like the book) for a few reasons, the main one being I am not comfortable writing first person, and I thought it would be funny to torture myself by writing such fantastic lines as, "I felt his hand touch his shoulder, and he could feel myself losing control." Also, I decided to make this...whatever this is (it's not a crossover, but it's not a parody...hmm) because I love the imagery of the boys in Italy in the summer, lazing and lounging and loving. And maybe there's some murder. Also, they're in Italy, which...lol That being said, not everything is the same between the two. I kept some core elements in for the purpose of substance, but overall this fic is gonna reflect NBC Hannibal more than CMBYN.
> 
> Finally, there's French and Italian (translated within the story in as artistic of a manner as I could think of) in this story, all of which I hope is done well enough that it's not laughable. If I get anything wrong, feel free to comment and I'll fix it, but I speak French (badly tbh) as a second language and made sure to look up everything, so hopefully it works out!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and enjoy!
> 
> PS Don't ask why, but you'll need to know: _Flottweg_ is a sewage separation company in Italy.

Summer was a season coated in thick sweetness, but in the heat and pale sunlight of Moscazzano, the town in Italy where my father and his wife spent their own candy summers, I was at a loss. I did not feel the sea salt breeze seep into me and change me in some ethereal way. I had spent eight summers in the family villa by the Ligurian Sea, and while I was of course entranced by the surrounding fishing villages and tranquil scenery, not much else amused me.  
  
Althea, my father’s wife, wanted me to experience a bigger world than in the swamps of Biloxi, or the concrete jungles up north. I couldn’t agree. There were boats that needed fixing all over the world, and fish in nearly every sea. I could go anywhere and it would all be the same.  
  
I paced my bedroom, knowing that in just a few hours our next summer guest would arrive. We typically got pretentious students with dull stories and various appalling neurosis. The last working professional--who had spent the few weeks prancing in the Italian culture like they were stomping out a fire that had roared too high--was a family friend.  
  
A car door was opened, and the voices of people I knew and people I didn’t floated up to my second floor balcony. I made my way to the railing, leaning over to see the commotion. My eyes landed right on Dr. Lecter. He wore deep mahogany dress pants and a nearly unwrinkled dress shirt that was so crisply white it bounced off the sunlight. Stoic, tall, fit. I rolled my eyes at myself, at the way my mind so readily betrayed itself. The doctor flashed a smile at my father with white teeth and empty eyes. Empty or veiled, I couldn’t discern from the distance.  
  
After scrambling to bring a few of my things into the guest room beside my own where I would be staying for the next few weeks, I made my way to the main floor. They had congregated in my father’s office to drink and talk. I entered hesitantly, eyes on the wood beneath my feet.  
  
“There he is,” my father burst, an alien grin peeling over his face. “Dr. Lecter, this is my son, Will.”  
  
I kept my eyes on the doctor’s forehead, a trick I had learned a couple of years ago to avoid eye contact, glasses low on the bridge of my nose.  
  
We shook hands briefly. “Hannibal, please,” he said, his accent not as thick as I expected, but still an interesting one. Certainly not like anything I’d heard before. “I’ve been told that you will be giving me the grand tour?”  
  
I nodded before I found my voice. “Yes. I’ll show you to your room.”  
  
I caught a moment of Hannibal’s gaze, ice cold and inquisitive, making me feel as though I were an ant beneath a magnifying glass. And in that moment, he must have seen something in my eyes, just a flash, but it clearly told him too much.  
  
I had no intentions going into the summer. I had a few months before my first semester at university began, and I planned simply to enjoy my time in Italy as best as I could. The stiffness around my stepmother was inevitable, and the tension at the dinner table would ease as guests came and went, filling up the gaps in the relationship with my father.  
  
Hannibal was aloof and distracted, always running downtown to the shops and helping Stella cook.  
  
One morning, just before the sun had begun to peak over the horizon, he was doing simple exercises in my room, possibly yoga by the sound of it, and I sat by the door connecting us as quietly as I could and listened to him. I pictured him, the tension in his muscles fading away in the early morning light. He’d slept in my bed, wrapped himself in my sheets, my scent. Whatever excitement the thought had garnered, it thrummed under my skin.  
  
The doors to the joint balcony were open. I could hear birds singing and water sloshing faintly. I breathed with him, our lungs expanding and expelling air fluidly. The small sounds he made had softened his presence, turned him from stone to something more tangible. I had never felt so calm, so grounded. We were completely in the moment, and nowhere else, and as alone as two people could be together.  
  
Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep against the door. I only awakened two hours later to the sound of Stella knocking on my door to tell me the doctor had made breakfast for us all. I could see the frustration in the lines on her face, but she also seemed relieved. No one had taken the load off of her shoulders so willingly in a long time.  
  
“Morning, sleepyhead,” my father said as I fell into the chair at the end of the table. Hannibal was wearing only a pair of swim trunks and sandals, pouring Althea a glass of water, and then me.  
  
“Ho preparato muesli allo yogurt con banane, lamponi, fragole e albicocche fresche dallo splendido giardino di Stella e Althea,” he announced to the table. “And of course, there is cappuccino and cornetto, as well.” After a few thank you’s, he whispered to me, “I was hoping you would enjoy something a little sweet this morning.”  
  
It was odd, and his smile was so soft that I couldn’t place the emotions behind it. I only saw him, heard his voice, and the way he spoke Italian like so many of the natives was striking. I didn’t understand much Italian, though I knew enough to go to the shops and make casual conversations with the locals. Our neighbors were French and American, and I’d subsequently picked up French, seeing as I was surrounded by it in my more formative years. Althea spoke four languages, taught my father and I everything we didn’t already know.  
  
Hannibal sat next to me and plucked at his muesli. I stole glances at him, sending a thrill down my spine each time I got away with it. I didn’t know what I was so afraid of, why it seemed wrong to simply take him in. The way his fingers held his fork, proper and sophisticated. The way his swim trunks clung to his hips, a pale yellow with white strings, untied. His sandals, brown and a little damp from the morning dew.  
  
Each moment was invaluable, or it had a value I couldn’t comprehend.  
  
In the afternoon, he asked me to join him on a trip to the city to gather some supplies. What supplies, he wasn’t sure yet. What part of the city, he didn’t know. He wanted me to show him.  
  
He borrowed my father’s bicycle and I took my own. We raced through the gates, and once we had passed through the gravel and dirt road leading to the villa, we floated effortlessly down the winding paths towards the more personable parts of Crema. We found a bookstore, whose display was more accommodating to the traveler, but further back contained shelves of literature and art supplies.  
  
“Your father tells me that you intend to pursue criminal justice,” he said, reaching for the spine of a book about Guittone d’Arezzo. My father inexplicably owned the very same book, perched atop a growing pile in the corner of his office. Hannibal decided against it, and I wondered if he had the same thought, at the same moment as I did.  
  
“Yes,” I mumbled, looking at a metallic globe that spun, quite literally, with the weight of the world, “I’ll be going to university in Virginia this fall.”  
  
“What are your plans once you graduate?”  
  
I laughed humorlessly. “I don’t tend to think so far ahead.”  
  
Hannibal seemed surprised at my honesty, and handed me a novel titled, _Giustizia e Scrittura_. “This may bring you some new perspectives, or simply inform your understanding of law.”  
  
I held the worn leather in my hands, feeling the cracks and embossed phrases with a light touch. “What’s it about?”  
  
“It is a fictional story, but only the characters are made up. At its core, it is about the conflict between religious faith and the law. It is especially in reference to America and Christianity, but it includes other examples. Would you read it?”  
  
I nodded, attempting to appear less interested than I really was.  
  
“Then I will have it for you.” Just like that, he was buying me a book. I felt the usual hesitation that I experienced around Christmas and birthdays, the intense and embarrassing desire to insist that _you don’t have to do this,_ and _I don’t really need it_.  
  
But by the time he had found the art supplies he had been looking for, and I had made a final decision on how to politely protest to the gift, we were at the register. When I saw her, my heart raced with fear. I had an instinctive desire to walk out of the shop, past the monument to Crema's history, and into the sea.  
  
“Ciao,” he said sweetly, and the cashier smiled brightly back at him.  
  
“Ciao,” she replied.  
  
“Do I hear a French accent?” Hannibal asked, and the girl giggled and said, “Oui! Comment l’as-tu su?” _Yes! How did you know?_  
  
Their brief conversation slipped past my head until she said my name.  
  
“C’est un vieil ami,” _He’s an old friend_ , she said. “Will?”  
  
“Bonjour, Margot,” I said, feeling heat flush my neck and ears. Her auburn hair was braided artfully over her shoulder, and I focused on the strands, hoping I would make it through the embarrassment.  
  
“Will, you never told me you made a friend!” She was joking, but I felt the tension is my fists build. We had gone on a few dates since I’d been back in Moscazzano, and she was beautiful and fiery and intelligent and despite it all it felt weird, and wrong, and I wanted her. I wanted her in ways I couldn’t understand.  
  
“He’s the new guest. A doctor,” I said lamely, trying to build myself up enough to make it through the conversation without Hannibal knowing what Margot and I had between us.  
  
“I was a surgeon,” Hannibal explained to us, French rolling off of his tongue again like it belonged to him. “But I recently began practicing as a psychiatrist. L’esprit est plus intéressant que le corps.” _The mind is more interesting than the body._  
  
A few minutes and a long line later, we were on our way back to the villa. “If you don’t mind me speaking plainly, I believe Margot has feelings for you.”  
  
I laughed, short and bitter, and peddled enough to be just in front of him, to his left, so I wouldn't have to see whatever smugness or curiosity befell his dignified features. He _knew_ , and it bothered me in ways I could only describe years later.  
  
Hannibal was headed to the outskirts if Crema in the evening for a meeting with a psychologist and a few other professionals interested in collaborating on a study. I sat on the balcony as the sun set, watching the waves off towards the horizon more than the sky.

Hannibal was unlike anyone I had ever met. I couldn't get inside his head, and he certainly didn’t leave any room for assumptions. I only got the pieces of him he allowed me to see, and even when he showed me a flicker or a spark, it was gone before I felt secure in my understanding.

I found myself wishing that he’d come back, find me curled up in his bed. My bed. Our bed. Maybe he would curl beside me and I would feel the heat radiating from him, and even though it would be too much, the evening air would spill from the balcony as a cooling touch, the sounds of the Riviera and the cicadas pressing us on into sleep.

Hannibal didn’t speak to me for a while after our trip to the city, always too busy writing or visiting the library in town for research. He missed many dinners for his work, always apologizing in the morning by offering to clean for Stella or do other chores. My father was nonplussed, just glad to have his stories to listen to whenever he was around.

His third week as our guest, his demeanor had changed only enough that I would notice. He seemed lighter on his feet, less intense. Almost like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Once I had taken a few sips of coffee, seated across from him outside, I gathered the courage to break the silence. “So, what has got you in a good mood?”

Hannibal looked up from his novel, _Le Choc Amoureux_ , and smiled. “I believe I am simply content with my current affairs.” I returned my gaze to my _petit-_ _déjeuner_. “I apologize, were you expecting something else?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. I guess I expect everyone else to be as miserable as I am. It’s unfair.”

“Not at all. Your reality encompasses everything you experience, it’s completely fair of you to assume that it pertains to everyone and everything within that reality, as it often does.”

“In my experience, reality is an extremely individual clusterfuck.”

Hannibal laughed, a short and bright sound that made my ears go inexplicably hot. “You are a very intelligent young man, Will. You’ll do well in the FBI. Though, I would advise you not to be so crude.”

“The FBI?”

“I assumed that’s where you were headed. A brain like yours, they’d be lost without you. Unless you intend on staying here, though by your previous comments, I would think you’d rather do work for Flottweg.”

Along with a few of the neighborhood kids, we took two boats out for the day. My father and Althea manned the one with the younger children, and Hannibal ours. He invited a woman named Alana Bloom without much context, but my father seemed almost pleased to see her, as if he knew her. She was clearly younger than Hannibal, but she was more intelligent, holding her knowledge like a protective shield. No man got in without acknowledging and yielding to it. I couldn’t help but respect her for it; women hardly became leaders without a level of ferocity men would never understand, and she had an elegance about her that was so stunning I could see the glimmer of a new piece of Hannibal through it; something he wouldn’t normally allow me to see.  
  
She held onto his arm, and I felt a fire flare up within me, so I called Margot. I called her because some sick part of me was hoping that everything Hannibal did was a suggestion, and that if I retaliated he would see something more of me than just a student, just the son of a fisherman. I called her because I liked her, I liked the way she felt and smelled and the way she thought. She was an abstract painting in a room of black and white film. She was beaming, ecstatic to be asked to spend time with me, sunshine kissing its warmth into her skin. Her hair was long and curled, her ripped jeans a dark grey and her tank top a soft vermilion, some kind of velvet fabric. I placed my hand on her lower back as my eyes scanned the water for fish. The weather was beautiful, but there was too much traffic in the area for there to be many of them ready to jump out of the water.

Margot's cousin, Theo, was kissing his girlfriend at the back of the boat, touching her breasts, making her giggle. Hannibal was clearly discomforted by it, clearing his throat but doing little else to make it known. Alana was amused, and I was curious. Curious about if Margot wanted me to, or even more than that, if she _expected_ me to do that, in front of my father and our guests. In front of Hannibal.

Would Hannibal look? Would he watch me take the thin strap of her shirt and brush it off the side of her shoulder, my hands flowing easily to the curve of her breast? Would he scoff, or smile, or maybe even feel jealous?

“Ils sont assez énervants," I said quietly enough to be a private conversation but not so quiet as to keep the couple in question from overhearing, "n'est-ce pas?” _They’re quite annoying, aren’t they?_

“Je crains qu'ils ne peuvent se ravaler tout entier.” _I fear that they may swallow each other whole,_ she replied, and then she laughed, her voice as smooth and rich as the color of her shirt.

“Quoi? What? What are you laughing at?”

“Vous êtes trop formel.” _You’re too formal._ “You should spend more time with me, I can teach you to speak like a normal person.”

For lunch, we ate sandwiches and drank cocktails. Hannibal put a little extra liquor and a little less mixer into my glass, claiming he wanted me to “enjoy myself.” We swam and drank some more and then we decided to head to the shore before it got dark. Margot was nearly asleep on my shoulder, her hand tangled in mine. I looked around and my eyes landed on Hannibal’s. He was helping Alana steer the boat, their hands together. I maintained our connection and felt the hand in mine turn to Hannibal’s, strong and calloused and bigger, and my heart picked up in speed at the feeling. I could feel him behind me, every inch pressed against my back. We were driving the boat, cooking dinner, watching the sunset, together-- even more than together.

Hannibal’s smile disappeared before I realized, and he looked away, laughing at something Alana had said and readjusting their hands. “No, no! Right, go right!”

“I am going right!” Alana cried, beaming. She was so beautiful it made me feel sick.

The lump in my throat followed me to my bed, or the guest bed, which smelled of nothing and felt worse than my own. I stared up at the ceiling and didn’t have the energy to do much else. I thought about the look on his face, something akin to disgust. Whether it was with himself or with me, I couldn’t tell. It hurt either way. I cried for a while, silent as tears spilled, trailing down the sides of my head and licking the tips of my ears. They built up in the curves of my bone structure, collecting like little pools. I sat up when it stung my eyes, wiped everything on my t-shirt and rolled over, convincing myself to feel nothing.

I could still feel his hand in mine, and I clung to the bed sheets tightly until my forearms burned and I had to let go, had to fall asleep.  
  
  
  
“May I show you something?” It was early in the afternoon, and Hannibal had decided to join me for a ride to town to pick up a package for Althea. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky for miles, and the heat was perfectly unbearable.  
  
“Sure,” he said, without hesitation. There was the distinct feeling of trust, of which I felt unworthy.  
  
I took him on a different path, heading north from the Riviera and then east of Crema. These roads were narrow and not meant for much more than a mountain bike or perhaps a moped, if one were so inclined.  
  
The golden sunlight fluttered around us as the trees shook, life adorning their branches. Hannibal smiled, possibly the entire ride, nearly running into logs or plants for lack of attention to the path. He was entranced, swollen in the beauty. I remembered feeling the same way when I found the trail many summers ago. Not that it had changed with familiarity, but I was rather enthralled in Hannibal's strange beauty.  
  
When we came to the clearing, Hannibal burst out with a gorgeous, surprised laughter and rested his hand on my shoulder, eyes trained on the water so clear you could find a fallen ring with only a good eye. My skin prickled beneath his touch and I kicked off the bike, left my shoes next to it, and headed into the water. It was too shallow to swim, only reaching to my knees. Hannibal followed quickly behind.  
  
I turned to him and spread my arms out wide. Isn’t it beautiful. It feels as if this is the center of the universe. The sun is so boldly lifting off of your skin. I can see it shining through your curls.  
  
“Hannibal,“ I whispered, as to avoid breaking the patient stillness of the clearing, “tu me vois?” _Do you see me?_  
  
His smile faded, and I worried that I had said the wrong thing, as I so often did. But he stepped toward me, his soft brown hair falling over his forehead from the sweat, and placed a hand on my cheek.  
  
“Je te vois comme un tableau voit son artiste,” _I see you as a painting sees its artist,_ he whispered back, and I felt the wind push me to press closer, to hold myself to him and never let go. But I couldn’t ask that of him; ask him to risk all of the things he would be risking just to do something as ridiculous as comfort me, as hold me, as kiss me.  
  
The sound of a Eurasian Sparrowhawk ran jagged through the clearing, and we looked up, watching it pass us by. His hand fell back to his side like a chopping block. The shrill staccato had caught us off guard, and the moment was broken, muddying the water beneath us. I walked away, going toward the place where I had read and watched the sunset and imagined love and a better life so many times, always alone.  
  
“I’ve never been here with anyone else,” I said, because it mattered to me that he knew. Because he needed to know how much this meant, how special this place was. I could feel a tension building, and I wasn’t sure what direction it was all heading, but I was scared. I took a seat in the grass, hands on my knees, and waited. After a few seconds, he joined me, close enough to put his arm around me, except he didn’t. He kept his hands linked together in his lap. His hands, I could see every hair and freckle on his arms, the smooth curves of the muscles in his calves beneath. I wanted to touch him, to hold him, to press kisses to every part of his legs, his neck, his _hands_. I wanted him to press his fingers to my mouth and expect me to know what to do with them--and yet when I did, when I took them in and pressed the pads of his fingers to the swell of my tongue, he would be surprised at how good I felt, at how much he wanted it.

“It’s not nice to stare,” he murmured, eyes half-lidded and his accent a distant reminder of his lack of connection to me.

“I’m not staring,” I said, my voice small but confident. I kept my eyes on his hands, them moved them slowly to his chest, where the buttons of his shirt were left open to bare the gold hair below his sternum, the curves of his pectorals. Then up his neck, and I lingered there, fantasizing about how his pulse would feel captive between my teeth. “I’m admiring.”

He chuckled, low and almost as a growl. His laughter could never have lasted long enough. I flicked my eyes up to see the heat within his very own, and then I was kissing him. His lips were soft and warm and his mouth was heaven against mine. He put a hand on the back of my neck, the other steadying me at my side. I pressed in, and my legs were twisted so I moved to sit on his lap, swinging a leg over where his were crossed. He pulled away, pressing our foreheads together. “Will…” he whispered. “Jums bus iš manęs mirtis.”

I didn’t understand him, had no idea what language it was, and I didn’t care. I kissed his forehead, his cheek, moved to his neck. He was breathing heavily, fisting his hands in my shirt. I was painfully hard, wishing we could go further, do more, feel everything.

I scraped my teeth against his collarbone and he moaned, digging his nails into my bicep so hard my vision went white. I arched my back, pulling at the back of his shirt for purchase. Hannibal placed his right hand on my cock, rubbing as he kissed my neck. In a flash of reckless lust, I grabbed his hand and pressed his palm against my mouth, practically slobbering as I licked and sucked and kissed his skin. Then I put his first two fingers in my mouth, sucked hard and rutted into his other hand, feeling myself get close. The heat of the sun melted away and there was a breeze cooling the sweat on my skin, sending shivers throughout my body. I bit down on his fingers without concern as I came, keening around them. There was a moment where all there was was the air and the smell of sex and Hannibal’s heartbeat, and then the taste of blood in my mouth and something trickling down my arm.

Before I had time to process anything, Hannibal was guiding me to his cock, hard and thick in his shorts. I pressed my bloodied lips against his length, and a pang of fear entered my heart. I’d never done anything like this before, what if I wasn’t good? What if I messed up?

I took the head into my mouth and he was so hard and warm and his hand was in my hair, dripping his blood and my own spit. I felt like I was still coming, pleasure falling in waves. My cock had skipped the process of going flaccid from the intensity. He pressed further into my mouth, and I took in a deep breath before doing what I thought I should have, sucking and pulling myself up along him. I could see blood everywhere, on our clothes and in the grass and dripping down the rim of my glasses into the lens. Hannibal thrust up into my mouth and I choked, gagging and spilling blood and spit and Hannibal’s cum everywhere. Once I pulled off, Hannibal was kissing my lips and pressing his bloody hand against my cheek. We fell back into the grass, kissing.

Hannibal pulled back to look at me, taking his uninjured hand to my brow to wipe away a bead of sweat. I laughed, resting my forehead against his chest. My mouth was dry, my head spinning. I licked my lips, copper coming away with my tongue. Hannibal reached up to press his thumb to my lips and then my bicep, where one of his nails had gone a few millimeters into my skin, blood already dried and a deep maroon color. We shared in the metallic flavor.

I closed my eyes and set my head against his chest, and we breathed together as I had imagined so many nights ago, listening to him through his door. He rubbed circles with his thumb into my hip, and I lifted his other hand to inspect the damage I’d caused. There were two gashes where my front teeth had torn into the ends of his middle and index fingers, right at the base on either side. I winced at the sight and kissed his hand gently. Hannibal sucked in a breath, closing his hand into a fist briefly. Blood spilled again, trickling into the grass.

“Désolé. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Ça va, mon coeur.” _It’s okay, my heart._

We ran into the water, and it wasn’t until we had attempted to rid our clothes of the blood and were standing beside our bikes, drenched and bare except for our underwear, that a sick feeling began to rise from my stomach to my throat. Hannibal was distant, not looking in my eyes. I felt like crying, screaming, dying, all of those ridiculous hormonal responses to devastation. I was young, but the pain was timeless. The pain was worse than the nail in my arm or watching him cozy up to a colleague on the Riviera.

My feet took me onto my bike before Hannibal had finished dressing himself with his damp clothes, tears shamefully falling down my flushed cheeks.

_Will! Will!_


	2. It Is With Two Eyes

“Did you know about this?”

Hannibal got into a fight. That was the story my father was told, excusing the bandage on his hand that was wrapped like his knuckles were bruised. It filled me with great satisfaction to know that beneath the gauze was not the blood of some thug’s cheek, but the shape of my teeth embedded into his skin.

“No,” I lied, shaking my head. It was difficult to feign disbelief, so I figured I wouldn’t bother. I smiled, helpless against it, and he looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was.

His face grew red with anger. “Oh, so you knew about it  _ and _ you think it’s funny?”

Hannibal cleared his throat and began to say, “Mr. Graham--” but my father cut him off with a  sharp, “No. You’re an adult, and not my responsibility. Will, what if you had gotten hurt?”

“I wasn’t there when it happened,” I said plainly.

“Really, it is entirely my fault,” Hannibal insisted. I felt ridiculous:  _ Mon héros. _ “Will was talking to his friend Margot, and I had wandered off.”

“Don’t go back there, at least not until we’ve filed a report.”

Hannibal’s jaw tensed. “That will not be necessary.”

“And why’s that? You were jumped, of course it’s necessary.”

They argued, but Hannibal seemed the only one able to maintain his temper. Not that I expected any different, but most arguments with my father ended with me in tears despite myself. Hannibal was defiant, nearly emotionless except for his bare annoyance.

A week later and Alana Bloom had decided to join us for dinner. I felt an odd mixture of relief and frustration, her presence a reminder that Hannibal was above me, out fo my reach, even with his fingers in my mouth.

I sat across from him, picking lazily at my pasta aglio e olio, my eyes fixated on his mouth. I couldn’t hear a word being spoken about Alana’s thesis or the way the sunset looked. My eyes flickered from feature to feature, but I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I was afraid--and maybe it was a little ridiculous--but I was afraid that it would make me weak.

I followed Hannibal onto our balcony after the rest of the world had gone to sleep. We drank mulled wine and talked about nothing, little things, fragments of conversations anyone else could spend hours fleshing out. We didn’t want to waste our time together.

“Have you started reading the book I gave you?” He asked, and I could only just see his outline in the moonlight, clouds covering most of the sky.

“I finished it. It was very good, although I don’t exactly agree with it.”

Hannibal looked amused, smiling almost patronizingly as he said, “With what, exactly?”

“I don’t think faith has anything to do with the law, but it has a hell of a lot to do with why people break it. People fight wars and molest children and create cults that end in mass suicide-- all for what? It’s certainly not something a police officer or even an FBI agent is going to fix.”

“I did think find of the solutions, as it were, a little far fetched. But violence is not inherently anything. Violence is merely the physical representation of a belief, religious or otherwise.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some kill for pleasure, others kill out of necessity or instinct. There are even people who kill due to delusions or hallucinations, things that only exist in their world.”

I pressed my forehead to the railing of the balcony, feeling the cool metal seep into my flushed skin. “Yeah, I guess.”

Hannibal gave a clipped laugh. “After all of that, that is your response?”

“Yeah.”

We laughed together, underneath a bright moon and beautiful if distant stars. My chest felt heavy, there wasn’t enough air in my lungs. It didn’t matter. I stood in front of him, reaching out my hand just enough to hold his chin in my hand, forcing him to look into my eyes. His features were bright and open and I could feel my heart beating so furiously I was tempted to take it out and let him hold it, as it so cleary wanted to escape me.

“Will…” Hannibal sighed, reaching his hand up to the hem of my shirt. He tugged me closer, in between his legs. His chair was too small for me to sit in his lap, so I pulled him up, the small of my back against the rail, the strong line of his body against mine. “You know I leave in two weeks, yes?”

“Two weeks, four days,” I mumbled into his shoulder, my face pressed against the soft cotton of his t-shirt.

“Hai tenuto traccia?”  _ You kept track?  _ Of course I did. Ever since I tasted your blood, I can’t stop thinking about you, I’ve spent hours planning the next thing I would say to you, daydreaming every reaction. I’ve swam in the pool pretending that the warmth encompassing me was you, your blood, your voice.

“Credo, credo.”

Hannibal wrapped his arms around me tightly, and I could hear him smell my hair, take me in. I shivered and pressed my hand to his dick, half hard and big and, God, I wanted so much. I wanted everything.

He made a small sound as I opened his pants, but didn’t move. I was a snail on live wire, heart beating so quickly it may have stopped. “Hannibal,” I whispered, just to hear his name, just to think of him.

“May I ask you a question?” I stilled my hand, but he told me to keep going, and hesitantly I did, strocking him and pushing my own dick into his thigh. “What do you expect, when these two weeks and four days have passed?”   


“I don’t know. I don’t-- fuck, I don’t think that far ahead.”

Hannibal kissed me, but it was as sweet as the apricots in the garden, soft as his smile. I held my mouth open and let him decide where he wanted me, and what he wanted me to do. He took his hands to my waist and squeezed and held me against the rail. He kissed me again, but it was all teeth, and I wasn’t sure what was happening until his hand snaked around my throat and slowly cut off the air to my lungs, making my head dizzy. I hit his chest a few times fruitlessly, trying to get him off until I realized it wasn’t happening. I was too weak, physically and otherwise. He was grinding into me, almost snarling with some strange emotion I couldn’t emulate, couldn’t comprehend; I was nearly sick with lust until he’d removed his hands, himself, and walked calmly into his room. My room. He left the door open, but I didn’t think it was an invitation.

So I took it as a challenge.

Hannibal had gone to the shared bathroom to wash his face with water and calm down, and I stood in the doorway, pants hanging open and hair mussed, lips red. I could see myself in the mirror, could see him. His face was expressionless, shoulders square. He looked into my eyes through the mirror.

“This doesn’t have to be a big deal,” I said awkwardly, trying to stand my ground and finding that there was no ground to stand on, not for miles. “Two weeks, and we will go our separate ways. Besides, I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

There was a long stretch of silence as Hannibal just looked at me. He turned away from the mirror and held out his hand. I took it and was wrapped into his arms. He kissed me deeply, grabbing onto my arms like I might run away. Against my mouth he said, “Two weeks  _ and _ four days.”

In the dream, we were underwater. He was holding me by my neck, eyes straining to stay open. The green water grew darker and darker, and I began to feel like I was falling, like I was dying, and I could feel,  _ really _ feel hands around my neck.

I jolted awake and grabbed onto the edge of the mattress, fear and adrenaline coursing through me. Hyperventilating, I sat up and took off my sweat-soaked t-shirt and attempted to calm myself, but it was nearly futile, my heart thumping painfully in my chest, my neck, I could even feel it in my fingertips. My entire body felt like it was undulating with the pervasive rush of my blood. My chest hurt so much I thought I might be having a heart attack.

I stumbled to him without thinking, pulling the door open and just saying his name, over and over, as if the very mention of him was nepenthe.

“Will?” He had been reading, letting the sunlight and cool breeze of the morning creep in through the balcony. I felt like this was it, this was my last breath. And then there was another one. Hannibal was feeling my forehead, checking my pulse, asking me to tell him what happened, did I know what was wrong. I need you to breathe. I can’t. If you’re speaking, you can breathe. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Hannibal. Hannibal. Hannibal.

“Will, please tell me what’s happened. You need to speak to me. I’ll be patient. Fais-moi confiance.”  _ Trust me. _

I was breathing so raggedly and quickly I could hardly hear myself say, “I had a dream, you, you were killing me, but it wasn’t. It was okay, it was-- good.”

Hannibal’s arms curled around me with a tenderness I couldn’t understand, and I pressed my face into the nook between his shoulder and chest, tried to stop sobbing and gasping. I felt like I was going to throw up, and then I didn’t. He smelled like sweat and cologne and warmth and I could feel his heart beating against my cheek. I breathed with him again, using him as a guide.

“Have you ever had a panic attack before, Will?” he asked after what felt like ages.

“Not that I know of,” I said, still mildly breathless.

“Alright.” He ran his hand through my hair, and too soon he was walking away. “I must apologize,” he said to the wall behind his desk, looking for something among his papers and notebooks. “I should not have hurt you last night. It was a slip in my control, and it will not happen again.”

“What?” I said dumbly until I remembered that he had put his hands around my throat, but all I could think after that was the aroused flush in his cheeks, the darkness of his eyes. “Oh.”

He looked at me with curiosity. “Did you not feel threatened?” he asked, sounding too much like a doctor assessing a patient. “I can see slight bruising around your neck.”

“At the time, no,” I said quietly. “I don’t know.” I had felt alive, more than alive. I had felt something real and new and truly cogent for the first time in my life, and it was more fulfilling than the culture shocks every time I had moved from state to state, country to country; more elucidating than the feeling of his blood in my mouth. “Metempsychosis. Reincarnation. New life.”

Hannibal turned to face me completely, holding a very large sketchpad and a small cotton pouch. “Que veux-tu dire?”  _ What do you mean? _

“When I met you, a new part of my life began,” I said proudly. “The part that is actually mine.”

The look in his eyes withered away my pride inexplicably. It was as if nothing had changed in the phsyical, but I could feel exactly what he was feeling, and it was leaden. “Do you want me to agree?” he asked.

“You don’t have to.”

Hannibal took me to the edge of the back garden, past the apricots, where the fence met the rocky shore of the Riviera. We were far enough away from the dock for placidity, but close enough to be hidden by plants, cords of wood, and boats.

On a small corner of land overlooking the water, we kept a few tables and chairs around a fire pit. It sometimes got flooded when the tide grew too high, but this summer had been dry--as dry as Italy could be--and so it was all undisturbed.

I sat down on the wooden bench that I had painted a brick red color years ago, and he sat directly across from me. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh, or comment, or move closer myself.

He looked up at the sky, sun still handsome behind the scattered clouds, and said, “It’s not an ideal day for a drawing as the clouds will create ever-changing shadows on your face, but I feel that I owe you an apology, however unwanted it may be.”

“You want to apologize by drawing me?”

“Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.”  _ The heart has it’s reasons, of which reason knows nothing. _   


I fidgeted in my seat. In my youth, I had found my appearance, beyond basic hygiene, less and less important with time. Self-consciousness was an absurd distortion of worth, whereas self-awareness was a nearly unobtainable honesty, a luxury almost.

I suddenly became very self-conscious.

“No need to worry,” he said with a hint of humor. “I will not ask you to remove your clothes, unless you would be comfortable doing so. I want you to enjoy it.”

I must have made some sort of face by the look on his, but all I could think about was the horror on Althea’s face, or Margot’s, or Stella’s, or my father’s. What would they think, their son and friend and sort-of-boyfriend practically baltering in the Italian sun, naked, with the eye of their guest and friend taking in every intimate detail?

“If I had thought you would be so adverse--” Hannibal stopped speaking as I tore my shirt off over my head and kicked off my shoes. After a few more seconds, I was completely naked, sitting awkwardly on the bench which was so incredibly warm against my ass from being in the sun all morning.

Hannibal came alive with a renewed ferocity. “I want you to lay as Potifar’s wife, dragging her husband’s garment from his shoulder.” I made sure to keep my back somewhat pressed against the back of the bench so I could face him, lying openly. My right leg was drawn up slightly, the other hanging loosely to the ground. My arms were sort of a mess, so Hannibal came over and positioned them so I was as weightless and delicate as I could be.

“Mano brangusis,” Hannibal said quietly. “Jei tik galėtum matyti save.”

“What language is that?” I asked, lifting my head before I remembered not to move. Hannibal was putting his sketchpad onto a portable easel, getting out a few pencils and setting his pouch on the chair beside him.

“Lithuanian. My native language. I’m afraid I forget that others do not usually speak or understand it.”

When he didn’t elaborate, I pressed him to tell me what he had said, but he seemed rather coy, or embarrassed. My recurring confusion around him was simply all the more reason for me to want to know. I  _ needed _ to know, like it might kill me to watch him stalk like a stag through my life and scamper out of sight, leaving me in the underbrush without game, without answers.

Eventually, after he had begun to draw and had spent a lot of time in the same place by the way it looked, possibly drawing my face, he said, “When I am finished, you will know.” He could sense my impatience, the naivety of youth. I rolled my eyes, stretched my toes and some of the muscles of my feet and ankles. Hannibal _tsked_ at me, like a dog. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but the heat of the sun and the tranquility of the seaside were pulling me into somnolence. “You may rest your eyes, I have finished them.”

“What’s left?” I asked, helpless against a yawn.

“Everything below your chest. And I still have to draw the bench, the rose bush, the grass…”

“Fuck, really?”

“I want it to be perfect. An exact replica of this most  _ marquant _ moment in time,” he replied, flicking something off of his paper. Probably a bug. That was the last thing I saw, because my eyes had fallen shut without my permission.

I couldn’t sleep there. The position I was in was only comfortable enough for the purpose of his art. My feet were beginning to fall asleep and my neck was sore. But I could daydream, think about what I would do later, remember how good Hannibal had felt, how he was watching me and studying my body and the thought that it was good enough to create art from.

“It is nearing time for lunch. Would you like to take a break?”

“No,” I said, not wanting it to end. I didn’t want to leave this small world where everything was sanity and warmth and him. I did feel a bit ridiculous, being naked and drawn and stared at, but it was worth the flash of embarrassment to see something like adoration in his eyes, feel it in the air. I had been appraised and I was worth millions, I was worth the graphite of his pencils and the way his eyes flitted thoughtfully between my features. I was worth him.

“No? Stella ha preparato pasta di pollo e verdure, e un'insalata dall'aspetto piuttosto robusto.”

I blinked my eyes open and found him looking back at me expectantly. He had already put his things together, as if to leave. “All I got from that was, “Stella,” “chicken pasta,” and “robust.” And the last one was a guess.”

Hannibal’s mouth was a pensive line as he stood. He helped me sit up and began to rub the soreness from my arm and shoulder, taking a moment to sweep his hand through my flattened hair. I leaned into his touch, whispering, “Ne me laisse jamais partir.”  _ Never let me go. _

“Jamais.”  _ Never. _

The salad was, indeed, robust, but the pasta was even more delicious: Chicken, vegetables, some kind of oil-and-herb sauce. My eyes closed in pleasure as I took my first bite. “Questo è fottutamente fantastico!”  _ This is fucking fantastic! _ I said, and then thanked Stella directly.

“Will!” my father yelped, scolding me for cursing.

“Scusa.”

Stella spoke up before she left the table, “Thank Hannibal, he went to the shops for all of the ingredients.”

“You’re telling me Franco at the macelleria sold you this chicken?” my father asked, looking at Hannibal as if he were lying about something much more important than chicken.

Hannibal smirked, and I caught it immediately. It wasn’t amusement, and it wasn’t to be polite-- it was pride. “Si. He took it straight from the bird.”

Althea winced, but remained silent as she ate.

I felt that something was going on in Hannibal’s head that no one could figure out. My gut was begging me to ask, but as I kept eating the feeling went away.

Hannibal told us about the work he was doing with his colleagues as we finished our meal. “There is a killer in the states. They call him the Chesapeake Ripper. We’re working closely with the FBI and the Italian police, as they have found similar murders to his in Florence and Venice.”

“Same pathology?” I asked.

“Yes. Our FBI correspondent, Jack Crawford, would like to believe that it is not him. We are less interested in the reputation of the police than we are in the safety of the people, and the knowledge we will gain.”

I had heard about the Ripper when I lived in Maryland, a few years before I even went to a few of the crime scenes, though they were long gone. All that was left were stains and caution tape caked in the grease of the city. I could see it, though. I could see the space and why the Ripper had chosen it, the sanctity and aesthetic it all provided. I could tell he cared a lot about appearances, about beauty. Beauty in death.

“Will is very perceptive,” my father said, stuffing his face with food. “Maybe he could help.”

“Dad…”

“How so?” Hannibal asked brightly.

My father looked to Althea, and then back at Hannibal. “Will and I vacationed in Florence when he was no older than nine, and we were eating breakfast at a little cafe called-- oh, what was it?  _ Duomo’s Teacup _ ? Anyway, he looked across the shop and told me that a woman was in love with me. Turns out Althea just liked me, but it was how we met, how it all began.”

I couldn’t possibly have sunk any further into my chair, and yet when they kissed and Hannibal began to comment on his own experiences with my “empathy,” miles appeared beneath me.

After lunch, Hannibal insisted that he could complete the drawing from memory, and so I let him go without argument. He wandered into the house and I didn’t follow. I decided to go for a swim, get some laps in to feel like I was doing something productive. All I could think about was the cases, the way Hannibal talked so smoothly even about murder.

Margot fell onto the guest bed in a fit of laughter, tugging my hand to sit beside her. Her 13 year-old cousin Abigail was sitting against the window, wind to her back.

“Who’s the guy?” Abigail asked.

“Some doctor,” I said, attempting to sound indifferent. “He’s pretty cool, but he’s boring.  Il est plus vieux qu'il en a l'air.” _ He’s older than he looks. _

“He likes you quite a bit, though,” Margot said. “He bought you that book.” She pointed to my desk, where it sat, spine faced towards us. I got up and grabbed it, and began to read as though mocking not only the book, but the man who had given it to me,

_"In questo mondo", disse Annella. "Ci sono solo due verità: Dio e la guerra, tutto il resto è una domanda"._ _  
__Giacomo non è d'accordo. "Non pensi che sia una visione semplicistica di un'esistenza altrimenti complicata?"_ _  
__"No."_ _  
__"E basta, è tutto ciò che hai da dire? No?"_ _  
___"Sei troppo saggio per discutere, amore."

Margot smiled at me, fragile.  “So, she thinks God and war are the only things that we know are real, and he thinks she’s stupid?”

“No, I think he wants to believe her, but he knows too much. She’s stuck in the aftermath of World War II, and he’s from a place that never knew war. Their lives leading up to their meeting were entirely different, even as they both struggled, made sacrifices.”

Annella was a pessimist with a vendetta against the world, and Giacomo was in love with her. The whole concept of their relationship was absurd at best. Neither character had much depth, it was as if everything that was supposed to be impactful was just on the surface of what they were saying, and beneath they were nothing. Just people. Vessels for a lesson no one wanted to be taught.

“Isn’t the point to pick a side?” Margot argued. “We’re supposed to choose, aren’t we? God or science, war or peace?”

“I think it would be a bit of a paradox to believe in both.”

“I think Giocomo knows that deep down she wants to believe him just as much as he wants to believe her,” Abigail said quietly. Margot and I looked over. “That’s why he argues with her. He wants to bring out the part of her that is similar to him.  Il veut se connecter malgré ce qui a distrait le reste du monde. ”  _ He wants to connect, despite what has drawn the rest of the world apart. _

Margot smiled and gestured for her to sit in front of her on the bed, so Margot could play with her hair. “ Sei troppo saggio per discutere,”  _ You are too wise to argue with,  _ Margot said, echoing the passage I had read.

I continued reading  _ Giustizia e Scrittura _ , or  _ Justice and Scripture _ , or  _ Will and Hannibal _ . Or was it Hannibal and Will? Was I the refusal to see through my own perspective, or was I dragging Hannibal into the light of the sun, simply out of my desire to be loved?

On a ride to Crema a few days later, there was a cat who had been injured on the side of one of the more obscure roads. It was whining and as I slowed and leaned over to inspect it, see where the blood was coming from, it winced and pitifully reached out its claw.

Hannibal stood behind me in silence. “Aren’t you a doctor?” I asked, still trying to convince the cat I wasn’t a threat. “I think it’s… it’s not gonna make it.”

“Have you ever seen a living creature pass away?” I shook my head. “It is important to experience it early on in life, so that you may learn the complexity of the world before you have been thrust into it on your own. Grief is a terrible thing, but it is not meaningless.”

“Are you gonna help it?” I asked, frustrated. He was standing still, face blank, watching me watch an animal in so much pain.   


“There is not much that can be done for it, Will. Its chest cavity has been damaged, it is probably suffocating on blood. In ten minutes, we would be carrying a corpse to an animal shelter with five miles still to go.”

I closed my eyes, taking its paw in my hand. I felt slightly ridiculous, but its eyes were blinking open and closed, and it was making hiccuping sounds that made my chest swell. I couldn’t help but imagine what it must be going through, drowning in its own blood. Lay siege to the body, intricate carnage, home.

My head hurt, pounded. I felt like my skull might burst. My lungs were full of blood, a thick sludge in each pore.

“Will?” Hannibal said my name like he didn’t know what it meant. “Will, are you alright?”

He took my hand away from the cat and held them in his own, turning me to him. I was outside of my body. I was elsewhere.

“Save me,” I whispered. “Save me.”

“You are okay, Will. You are not hurt. You are alive, undamaged. Do you understand.”

“I don’t feel undamaged.” I struggled to speak, my eyes shut so tightly they felt open.

“We’ll bring the cat home and give him a burial.  Ça va?”

I nodded and tucked my face into his chest. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re going into a new phase in your life, Will. I think you are simply failing to deal with the pressure. You will be okay, I promise.”

In the evening I was reading in my bed, the gifted book, but my eyes were merely scanning the pages as I worked up the courage to talk to him, maybe lay with him, if he were tired. If he wanted me too. I fantasized multiple scenarios where he said yes, where we held each other and talked, or kissed, or more. Then my mind was flooded with rejection, shame, fear. His hands on my throat again, falling over the edge of the balcony.

I wondered if I would die from the fall.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The passage from the book Will reads translates to:
> 
> "In this world," Annella said. "There are only two truths: God and war. Everything else is a question."  
> Giacomo disagreed. "Do you not think that that is a very simplistic view of an otherwise complicated existence?"  
> "No."  
> "And that's it, that's all you have to say? No?"  
> "You are too wise to argue, love."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed and want more, give me a kudo! Also, feel free to comment, I read them all and love them all.


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